Pfizer jacks up price of five-day course of COVID drug Paxlovid to $1,400 – New York Post

Business

By Ariel Zilber

Published Oct. 20, 2023, 11:45 a.m. ET

Pfizer plans to charge COVID patients around $1,400 for a five-day course of the antiviral drug Paxlovid nearly triple the amount the US government paid during the coronavirus pandemic, according to a report.

The pharmaceutical giant sent a letter dated Wednesday to pharmacies and clinics announcing the $1,390 price tag for the drug, which was the first oral treatment for COVID approved by the Food and Drug Administration, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The US government had been paying $529 to Pfizer for the five-day course.

Those with health insurance will likely pay much less than new, jacked-up price.

Pfizer is also expected to offer price discounts and help patients with out-of-pocket charges, according to The Journal.

Pfizer has reaped handsome profits from COVID-related treatments, including its mRNA vaccines.

But critics note that the company could not have brought the inoculation to market without significant funding of mRNA technology by taxpayers.

According to the Congressional Budget Office and other experts, the federal government has spent anywhere from $18 billion to $39.5 billion on developing the COVID vaccines.

While the US government directly gave funds to Johnson & Johnson and Moderna to develop their respective vaccines, Pfizers German partner, BioNTech, received a $445 million grant from its government.

The breakthroughs made in mRNA research is credited by many as the reason that Pfizer was able to bring its vaccine to market as quickly as it did, according to experts.

Pricing for Paxlovid is based on the value it provides to patients, providers, and health care systems due to its important role in helping reduce COVID-19-related hospitalizations and deaths, a Pfizer spokeswoman told The Post.

The spokeswoman added that all Paxlovid doses marked with the emergency use authorization label will remain free of charge to all patients until the end of 2023.

In addition, Paxlovid will remain available free of charge through 2024 to Medicare, Medicaid, and uninsured patients through a US Government patient assistance program (PAP) operated by Pfizer, the company spokesperson said.

Critics, however, blasted the company for gouging the public.

Eric Feigl-Ding, an epidemiologist who made frequent media appearances during the pandemic, wrote on the X social media platform that Pfizer is getting too greedy and that the cost increase was shameful.

David Hoskins wrote on X: Pfizer made $31,400,000,000 in profits in 2022, so of course it needs to jack up the price of a lifesaving medication 2.6 times in 2023.

Shares of Pfizer were down by some 1.25% as of 10:40 a.m. Eastern time on Thursday.

In March, Moderna, the makers of one of the COVID vaccines, announced that it would price one dose of the shot at around $130 more than four times what the US government paid to make the vaccine available at no cost.

Last month, Pfizer BioNTech set the list price for their jointly manufactured COVID vaccine at $120 per dose.

By contrast, the US government paid $19.50 per dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine in the initial contract that was signed in 2020 and $30.50 per dose for the updated vaccine that was released by the company last year.

Earlier this week, Pfizer reduced its full-year forecast for sales of Paxlovid by about $7 billion, and for the vaccine it developed with BioNTech by about $2 billion due to a plunge in use of pandemic-related products.

The company said that it had to take back 7.9 million unused Paxlovid doses from the US government.

It said it would make cuts this year and next and take a write-down.

In light of the forecast, Pfizer said it plans to embark on a $3.5 billion cost-cutting spree.

On an early Monday call with analysts, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said he expects around 17% of the US population will get updated COVID shots during the current vaccination campaign, in line with last year, but far below rates seen when vaccines first emerged in the spring of 2021.

The US is in the middle of COVID fatigue, where everyone wants to forget about the disease, he said.

Moderna, in a statement on Monday, maintained its current revenue forecast of $6 billion to $8 billion for its COVID vaccine for 2023.

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Pfizer jacks up price of five-day course of COVID drug Paxlovid to $1,400 - New York Post